MIT’s 3D-printed aluminum alloy is five times stronger than cast metal and could transform aircraft and industry.
MIT’s new 3D-printed aluminum shows a dense structure that delivers record strength and heat resistance.
Photo Credit: Felice Frankel
MIT researchers have developed a new aluminum alloy that can deploy 3D printing and is much stronger than standard products, in fact, it could be five times stronger. The metal, developed through the novel simulation and learning methods, is stable at high temperatures. When it's printed, a lot of the internal structure of the model fuses together very well, making for a strong and functional model. The advance could make it possible to replace today's heavier, more expensive materials used in aircraft engines, cars, and high-performance industrial systems.
According to an MIT report published in the journal Advanced Materials, the new alloy was developed by mixing aluminum with selected ingredients found by machine-learning models. These tools reduced more than a million possible combinations of materials to 40 good prospects, sparing years of trial-and-error experiments. Laboratory tests demonstrated that the printed alloy was as strong as the best traditionally made aluminum, while being much lighter than materials such as titanium.
The new alloy's strength comes from its internal structure: rapid 3D printing cooling forms dense, evenly distributed precipitates, making aluminium stronger, unlike slow casting, which weakens the metal by enlarging features.
The development team also notes the alloy's wide industrial potential, providing lightweight high-strength aluminium with applications in aviation, automotive, a vacuum system, and a data centre cooling system based on its strength and heat holders, as well as cost next to titanium components.
MIT classroom challenge soon turned into research, as scientists worked to perfect the alloy and expand methods to include other metals with a hope of revolutionizing 3D printing with lighter, stronger machines.
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